The Princeton tiger has been granted literary life with a memoir published in early February by Blanche Kapustin ’95, titled Tigering: Memoir of an Ivy League Mascot. The book details Kapustin’s time as the Princeton mascot. All profits from the sale are going to the Princeton band.
Kapustin, who majored in economics, said she never planned to become a writer. However, she explained that she used to narrate her “tigering” exploits as bedtime stories to the children whom she babysat.
“I think I’ve always had these stories lingering in the back of my head,” Kapustin said.
From there, it was simply a matter of putting her “unusual experience” on paper for a wider audience. Some of Kapustin’s memories include the first time she stepped into the suit that “stank of some guy’s sweat” and the time she was attacked by the Columbia fencing team after a lost football game on Halloween of her sophomore year.
Kapustin said she first assumed her responsibility as mascot when she was approached by the men’s basketball coach at a game. She was friends with the cheerleaders, and they needed a substitute for the mascot, who was unable to attend that game.
According to Kapustin, putting on the tiger suit allowed her the freedom to express herself, to “be the person who can get up and dance to the band’s music even by myself, the person who can play with the little kids even though I don’t know them personally and clap for my friends even though I’m not a cheerleader, the person who can go ahead and do those things without being afraid of messing up.”
Kapustin explained that the memoir and her mascot experience are about proving to people that she is not easily classified. “Everyone looks at you like you’re an animal in a cage and they’ve constructed those cages where they think you belong,” Kapustin said.
Although Kapustin composed the memoir, “to get some stuff off my chest,” she said her main motivation for writing was to give back to the University, especially the band, a group with which she spent many hours at school events.
“Obviously I’m not looking for fame and fortune here. [Writing the memoir] is my way of giving back to the band. If you read the book I think you’ll understand that they’ve done a lot for me and for each other,” Kapustin said, referring to the band as “family.”
“Blanche takes Princeton spirit seriously and in the positive way of that. I kind of got the sense that she absorbed more of Princeton spirit than other Tigers might have,” Sharon Beth Kristal ’94, one of Kapustin’s friends from the University Band, said.
Kristal remembered that Kapustin made appearances at events for every single sport because she felt it was important for the Tiger to show the athletes who weren’t men’s basketball players or football players that they were valued as well. “That’s Blanche,” Kristal said.
In her mascot duties, Kapustin encountered many University alumni including John Gore ’68, with whom she became friends.
“The tiger is a universal singular noun and means everyone, you, me, anyone who’s been associated with Princeton. Blanche resurrected that and made it the self-effacing image of Princeton,” Gore said.
According to Gore, the image of the Princeton Tiger dates back to the 19th century when players wore a “black leotard” during athletic contests. In order to tell the teams apart, Princeton decided to place ribbons on their uniforms. Because Nassau Hall was named in honor of King William III, Prince of Orange (of the House of Nassau), the ribbons were orange, prompting spectators to say that the Princeton athletes “looked like tigers.”
“The tiger was a kind of iconic, new, romantic thing in everyone’s literature,” said Gore. Consequently, it became the “brand” of the University, what Gore calls “the physical manifestation of being a Princetonian.”
Tigering: Memoir of an Ivy League Mascot is currently on sale on Amazon.com in hard copy or as an e-book.
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